In my more than 30-year career as a bricklayer, preservationist, and project manager, I’ve been fortunate to have worked on many noteworthy buildings in New York City. None, however, has had more significance to me than the Algonquin Hotel, a…
The Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Northwest Historic District in Upper Manhattan has some beautiful buildings with amazing stonework, but also sadly a lot of decay. Fortunately one cooperative board in the neighborhood has been working hard to maintain its building’s architectural integrity…
Some projects have the dual benefit of looking good and doing good at the same time. We recently completed a project that transformed a formerly bleak, unused space into a new medical clinic that now brightens the prospects of its…
RAND’s official mascot and goodwill ambassador Randy the Snowman has been busier than ever this year, but he always has time to wish everyone a safe, healthy, and happy holiday season. We hope you and your family have a great…
On a crisp, clear night with a gorgeous view of the Empire State Building as a backdrop, RAND Engineering & Architecture, PC celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Rare Rooftop Bar in the Hilton Fashion District Hotel in Chelsea last Thursday. It was a wonderful evening spent with staff, clients, and friends looking back at how far RAND has come and gazing ahead at how far we still hope to go.
On October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, the largest one-day market crash in history at the time. The Dow lost 22.6% of its value that day, equal to approximately $500 billion, rattling the world’s economy…
As RAND’s Marketing Director, I rarely get my hands dirty visiting job sites as our hard-working engineers, architects, and project managers do hundreds of times a year. While they’re walking on hot tar roofs in the summer, braving stiff winds…
In October 1987, a 16-year-old boy who loved to solve problems was beginning his junior year at St. Peter’s Preparatory School in Jersey City, NJ, studying math and science and planning on becoming an engineer—the ultimate problem-solving profession. At the…
Each summer RAND selects a student from Robert Whalen’s engineering class at Richmond High School in Queens for a summer internship. The purpose of the internship is to give students a chance to see the different kinds of work that…
Mayor Bloomberg’s office recently released the city’s first report on Local Law 84/09, which requires New York City buildings with more than 50,000 square feet (or multiple buildings with a combined square footage of more than 100,000 square feet) to…
Just as every team needs a good utility player, so does every company—especially a startup. When Rand was getting off the ground in 1987, it had Chris Walsh. The company had just moved into a barren office in Chelsea, and…
After finishing my freshman year at the University of Virginia as a civil engineering major, I was excited to land a summer internship at Rand. But with no previous experience and only a year of college under my belt, I…
New York has more than 22,000 acres of tar and asphalt roofs, and during a summer like this, all that black acreage contributes to an already steamy, overheated city. Fortunately, more and more of those roofs are coming to life…
As a structural engineer working for Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA), a government agency that oversees building safety, I recently visited New York with a colleague, Jeremy Tan, to learn about the city’s Facade Inspection & Safety Program, otherwise…
As summer officially arrives today with a hot, steamy vengeance, air conditioners throughout the city are going full blast. If you have a window A/C unit in your apartment, here are some reminders to make sure the unit is safely…
When I was in grammar school, the guest speakers on Career Day were typically police officers, fire fighters, and doctors. Although they were engaging, I wished I could have heard someone talk about buildings and design and construction, which I’ve…
Our busy staff is constantly running from project to project, so once in a while it’s fun to run for a different reason. Last week a group of 34 Rand employees participated in the 36th annual J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge…
With a staff of more than 80 people, Rand has engineers and architects covering a full range of disciplines. In the firm’s early days, however, it was a shoestring staff with all hands on deck. “When a job came in,…
Recently one morning I was at an Upper East Side building taking measurements for a Local Law 11/98 repair program. As I was walking down the fire escape from the fourth floor, one of the metal steps broke off and…
One of the more frequent assignments we get at Rand is figuring out how to stop leaks in buildings. Once water enters through the roof or facade, it can travel far and wide, making it difficult to find the source…
In October of 1987, a handful of RAND Engineering, PC employees (we hadn’t added the “& Architecture” part yet) set up shop on the 12th floor in a drab building in what was then a sketchy part of Chelsea, on…
Recently at a residential co-op in Upper Manhattan, Rand administered the installation of three new gas absorption chillers and two new boilers that required some tricky maneuvering. The new 60-ton-capacity chillers (each weighing 5,310 pounds) and boilers (1,025 pounds) are…
As you wend your way through the streets of New York, especially in Manhattan, you can’t avoid walking under or around construction sheds, those ubiquitous steel-and-plywood structures covering large tracts of the city’s sidewalks. Just how ubiquitous are they? According…
Rand recently received an award for Environmental Stewardship from the New York Association of Realty Managers, which has us basking in a warm, green glow. We’re glad to see how the real estate industry has embraced the importance of making…